Thwarted I am. Thwarted!

It had been my ambition to eat out at least once daily during my late summer week off.

Managed it on Saturday. Lunch in the Three Horseshoes at Spitewinter with The Builder.

Managed it on Sunday. Lunch in the Dog and Partridge near Disley with The Builder, Ian, Freyja, Fiona (Ian’s niece) and her partner John. The Dog and Partridge is a carvery, chain pub. We won’t go there again (though if we should find ourselves around Disley at lunchtime, the Ram’s Head looks quite nice)

Managed it on Monday. Lunch in the Ashford Arms at Ashford in the water, with The Builder and Ian - though we completely failed to achieve the post-prandial walk that we had promised ourselves by not being able to find anywhere at all to park in Ashford after we left the pub car park.

Yesterday we comprehensively failed. Our plan had been brunch at the Corner Stone coffee shop in Tupton. Got there - and it was closed!!! Somebody was putting up a new power pole across the road from them and their power was off. Had to come home and make our own bacon and eggs :-( Then Ian went to London and The Builder and I had left overs for dinner.

Am anticipating dinner rather than lunch out tonight. We are meeting Ian in Oxford, where he presently is, this evening and staying overnight. Lunch in Oxford tomorrow. Dinner in Cambridge on Friday. Lunch and dinner out on Saturday. Mission probably accomplished, apart from yesterday.

In the meantime, I, at least, have been quite busy. We picked up Freyja at her place on Sunday morning quite early (very early for her) and trundled off to Manchester Airport to collect Ian, who is here for Tabitha and Gareth’s Do next Saturday and to meet various medical people in London. We had arranged to meet Fiona and John and he Leigh Arms near Disley for lunch - this being probably the only opportunity Ian would have to see Fiona on this trip. I had completely failed to find a Leigh Arms on the Internet. Armed with John’s instructions, I put the address into Jenny and off we went. Drove all the way through To right the other side of Disley, counting off the pubs as we went. No Leigh Arms. Rang Fiona. Not the Leigh Arms. The Dog and Partridge. Always useful if you call a pub by the right name! The Leigh Arms is somewhere else entirely!

We took Ian to the Chatsworth farm shop on Monday. I think he thought he’d died and gone to heaven! He was impressed when we went into the first bit, with the vegetables and cakes and yummy things. Then he found the new fish bar. And then the butchery. When we walked on and he found the bakery and the deli, he practically swooned! He said as we left that it would have been easier to have put the few things that he didn’t want to buy in a trolley and take the rest. Fortunately, I had control of the trolley and we didn’t buy all that much.

Tabitha and Gareth, along with Freyja, came for dinner on Monday evening. Tabitha and Gaz had been at the Leeds festival over the weekend and usually do call for dinner on their way home from the festival. This year, of course, there was the added attraction of having Ian to look. They collected Freyja and brought her with them. We had beef wellingtons (apart from Freyja who had a quorn kiev) and mint and choc chip ice cream.

Mostly, I have been cooking. The freezer is positively groaning with wedding food. There are party pies and party sausage rolls. There are vegetable puffs and a rice and bean mix for making rice patties. Soon there will be cheese twists and sesame twists (not in the freezer!) and bride and groom biscuits, meringues and jam tarts (likewise not in the freezer). On Friday I’ll make various salads and some mashed potato and vegetable fingers. Then we’ll transport all of that to Cambridge together with some marinating lamb chunks, some pea patties and some pitta bread, ready for the wedding lunch on Saturday. If I have time I might also make some ice cream. I might also need a second car to get everything down!

I have been doubly thwarted. I have been absolutely scouring the world to find some rice pastry for making gluten free spring rolls. Can’t find it anywhere. Am beginning to think hat it might not exist. The Builder and I even made a quick trip to Sheffield yesterday to go to the Chinese supermarket and *they* didn’t have any, though they did have spring roll wrappers and wonton wrappers - but made with wheat flour. So no gluten free spring rolls for the wedding party. I do have some rice noodles, though. At least Paul (cousin; gluten free diet) can have some noodles with his marinated lamb chunks on Saturday.

I think I have destroyed the kitchen. It looks like a major insurrection has happened in it. I might need a new one!!!!!

Right. Must go. There are twists and biscuits and tarts to bake. I have never before been much of a baker. I seem to have taken it up over the past few months.

Oh - but I am not going to try crumpets again for a long time. We never did rescue the new pancake pan after I burnt the last lot of crumpets onto it. I’ve had to throw it away :-(